One of the keyi8nterests of classrooms and audiences when I discuss social media is the Money Trail. I show a slide featuring Korean sensation Pay during his 15 minutes of fame triggered by his hot Gangnam Style.

It points out the formula for financial success beginning with developing a presence onthe web that leads to attention that yields "votes" on the form of Likes, Retweets, and similar votes by social media participants. It was pointed out that such action wold eventually lead to cashing in when a content creator was successful at generating "stuff" worth searching.

Well, this model has developed nicely thanks to YouTube and its monetization of high-volume content. Last week, Advertising Age (04/13/15) listed the monthly income of top video content producers. Check this: Channel March Views Estimated Earnings Yuyu (lady16makeup) 35,838,360 $41,475.73 grav3yardgirl 27,701,580 $32,291.73 Zoella (zoella280390) 23,462,310 $27,374.65 charliscraftykitchen 29,133,270 $127,777.21 cookiescupcakesandcardio 17,064, 240 $79,308.53SOURCE: Advertising AgeThis is just a sampling of data from an informative story. It is really with a look-see, for more go to Ad Age. What is really instructive is that YouTube ihas become some a powerful advertising platform connecting netizens with the content they seek with a couple of keystrokes. On the flipside, YouTube has truly democratized content creation.